Back again
by Ashley Undomiel
Summary: Short story. Post Reichenbach. After Sherlock's return, something changes deep inside himself towards John as they rebuild their life together.
1. Chapter 1

John was losing his breath but he couldn't stop running –there was no time to stop. And even if he _could_ manage to keep running nonstop indefinitely, Sherlock's legs were too long, his pace was too fast, and it was pushing John too far off his limits. The freezing air of the winter night wasn't much of a help, burning with every lungful he took. John couldn't go on anymore –everything was fading to black around him and the irregular, forced breathing was causing deep spams in his side that he couldn't bear for any longer. And then, John just stopped.

He leant on a wall in the first alley he saw, arms around his slightly bent body. A few seconds later he heard Sherlock's steps abruptly stop and turn towards him, running.

"We've been running for too long. I'm sorry I didn't realize I was pushing you too much. But we can't stay here, come on. They're coming and they're not far."

Sherlock put his left arm across John's back and guided him to a safer spot. There was no time to find a more appropriate place; they would have to content themselves with whatever place they had at hand.

They hid in a very quiet yet very small place, crowding in, no separate space between them, facing each other, not daring to even breathe, hearing steps and voices not too far from where they were. The dim blue light of the night without yellow streetlights in the surroundings covered everything around them, giving Sherlock's skin and even paler, fainter, almost non-human aura. He could have perfectly passed for a gypsum sculpture, as still and painfully beautiful as he was.

He looked down at John with his ice blue eyes, colder and sharper in that eerie light that seemed to come right from them, his hands clenched in fists at the side of both legs, his eyebrows tense, slightly curved in a contraction of what looked like… sorrow, if that was even possible in him.

"I'm sorry, John. I was rush and put our lives in danger. Your life." He whispered, mortified.

"It's alright, Sherlock" John replied, trying to take importance away from the situation. "You're allowed one mistake every now and then. I don't forget the incident with the Black Lotus, you know. Sarah and I almost die that night."

Okay, maybe that wasn't the right answer at the moment. Sherlock didn't reply, as the contraction in his eyebrows grew more pronounced and his eyes closed strongly, not making a single sound, not even breathing. John stared at him helplessly, suffering from seeing him suffer. Very few times had Sherlock allowed himself –or couldn't restrain himself– to show any emotion, and this was always either anger or frustration, only once a remote hint of some sort of pain involving Irene Adler and even then John wasn't sure whether pain was the correct term for what Sherlock had felt. The vague, distant shade of suffering and remorse that made him look slightly, just slightly vulnerable for as short and fragile as the moment was made John speechless, pierced with a paralyzing sense of powerlessness and guilt. He would have wanted to hug him, comfort him, touch his face, tell him it was alright, but he knew Sherlock was not up for wasting time with such meaningless idiocies. He would put himself together alone as he always did, and John would have to silently watch, as he always did. Sherlock was just angry for having made a mistake –that was all. They were both injured, though not seriously, and Sherlock was blaming himself for not having been able to prevent it. He couldn't permit himself this sort of errors.

But then something happened. Sherlock leant forward and pressed his brow on John's, who didn't dare moving not even an inch of his body, feeling that even the softest of moves would tear apart that unexpected, unlikely yet longed-for moment of closeness, as delicate and precious as it was. And so they stood still, brows together, eyes closed, holding their breaths, as John witnessed a frangible, defenseless Sherlock giving himself to him, even if it was for only that fleeting moment, while John did his best to try and memorize it, imprinting it deep in his mind forever. Sherlock was back and he had him right there, after all those three deadly years, and though he didn't dare to touch him, just this was enough for a lifetime.

That sudden yet brief moment of humanity in Sherlock lasted barely ten seconds that felt like intense, endless hours to John. Sherlock suddenly opened his eyes and looked at him almost fiercely. He wasn't going to let himself be weak. He wasn't going to fall apart. He never did, and he sure wasn't starting now. He was going to protect John. He had died and come back from the dead, he had defeated Moriarty and Moran, and he wasn't going to let this situation beat him now. He put both hands in each of John's shoulders: "Have you caught your breath? We still have a long way to go, even if we lose them and let him escape for tonight, and we can't afford making any more mistakes." And so they left their improvised refuge as soon as they heard the steps and voices passing by and getting lost far away in the city, both running together one more time.


	2. Chapter 2

Once back at home, John took care of their injuries. Sherlock had just been back for barely five days and it all still seemed like a dream to him, or like a beautiful, painfully beautiful nightmare from which he feared he was condemned to wake up. As he treated Sherlock's wounds, the touch felt surreal. Sherlock didn't look at him at first, lost in the contemplation of the hearth but more likely looking inwards and avoiding facing John. When John was done, he kept staring at him until Sherlock mirrored the gesture and with intense regret in his eyes he said: "I'm sorry about everything." John reached for Sherlock's hand and gave him a smile that meant to say there was nothing to forgive. "You're here, Sherlock. There can hardly be anything I could care more than that."

After they both had a bath, John left Sherlock to rest in the sofa by the fire and went to the kitchen to make some tea. Sherlock was deeply disturbed, and that was showing even through the façade behind which he was carefully trying to hide, sitting still, looking at the fire with his hands together over his mouth as he always did. John didn't mention anything, on Sherlock's behalf, but he was worried. It was all too much –coming back after three restless years of private war and not having a single moment of piece since then, getting involved in a very complex, dangerous case that almost cost them their lives. Sherlock was exhausted. John, on the other side, was refulgent with joy. Sherlock was back. Nothing else mattered.

They drank their tea in silence, each at one bottom of the sofa. When Sherlock was done with his, John recommended some sleep and encouraged him to go to his room and rest. Sherlock didn't protest and did what he'd been told, which wasn't at all normal, and John noticed. He clearly needed to be alone and process everything.

Closing the door behind him, Sherlock leant his back on it. Of course he wasn't going to sleep. He needed to think. _Think_. He almost fell apart in front of John earlier that night. He knew what could have happened. Three years had been too long, too harsh for him as well. Yes, even for him. Before John, he had a perfect self-protection system: loneliness and detachment. Even including Victor –with who he hadn't had that much of a long nor meaningful relationship, or much of a relationship at all, and which anyway had happened ten years ago– he'd never had to worry about losing anything. He himself was the only thing he had, and it worked perfectly that way. But then John appeared in his life, and from the very first day things were clearly different, however much he fought it. But yet again, he managed it well. John was surely busy with his several girlfriends and both of them with their cases, all of which had given Sherlock more space to detach and rebuild himself every day until it wasn't necessary anymore because it came naturally to avoid any feelings towards him as he grew used to having him around. He had just been caught off guard, which by the way wasn't forgivable. But then, Reichenbach happened, and Sherlock learnt what it was to lose John. Three years he was forced to be apart from him, _three years_ he was forced to miss him no matter how much he tried to push those feelings away. _Feelings_. The mere thought of made him flinch.

He spent a few hours walking around his bedroom trying to put himself together. He couldn't help remembering, nonetheless, the misery he'd felt. He had Mycroft informing him on John's status constantly, knowing John had fallen apart and only with Mycroft's constant presence had John avoided doing something stupid. But eventually he carried on, keeping himself alive, just _staying alive_, like Moriarty used to say –oh, the irony–, though difficultly. John kept saying he believed in him. He never got over it. He couldn't let him go. Oh, and neither did Sherlock, whether he liked it or not.

The thing was, nevertheless, that Sherlock had neither strength nor desire to fight whatever _feeling_ he was having towards John. He had learnt with too much pain what it was to lose him, and the despair of not knowing, not being certain about whether John would take him back after all those years, understand and forgive him, and not knowing what he'd do in case John wouldn't. But yet he did, just like that, which made it incredibly more difficult not to love him.

_Love_.

Sherlock knew he was helpless.


	3. Chapter 3

By half three in the morning Sherlock left his room, dressed in his plain gray t-shirt, pyjama pants and blue dressing gown, in a quest to get some coffee, given the impossibility to get some sleep, only to surprisingly find John in the kitchen pouring water in the kettle.

"Why am I not surprised", John said with a welcoming smile. "Do you even sleep at all?"

Sherlock's heart skipped a beat but his exterior was imperturbable.

"Coffee for me", Sherlock said, as he turned his back to him and headed to the living room.

"I see you haven't changed at all, have you", John laughed transparently.

Minutes later, coffee was served at the coffee table by which Sherlock was sprawled in the sofa. He sat up, folding his right leg under the left one, resting his right arm in the back of the of the seat, holding his coffee in his right hand at mouth height, all in order to face John, who sat down at the other side, facing Sherlock as well.

"I don't see you sleeping either, by the way."

"Well, you know. The nightmares."

"I don't think it was the nightmares, John."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, to being with is usually _tea_ what you drink in those cases, not coffee, and that is if you get up and go out of your room at all; secondly, you don't look disturbed _nor unrested_ nor sweaty, as is usual in those situations as well; you look quite good actually, though you _do_ look worried or stressed, for some other reason."

"In fact, I am worried, yes, and it is about you if you must know."

Sherlock looked immediately away and remained silent, drinking his coffee. Neither of them said a word until Sherlock finally started talking about the case, but John found himself unable to follow the thread of his words, completely carried away by the sound of Sherlock's deep voice as though it was the hypnotizing singing of a siren dragging him down to the past were his voice was never missing. Memories took him back to the very first day, when Sherlock's luring ways made him fall irrevocably. But then, everything disappeared, everything was taken away from him. The voice was missing. John was left alone to his memories, and he regretted not having taken the time to memorize every small detail of Sherlock's face, without being able to take one last close look to engrave him in his mind. And he'd even been forced to see him _fall_, all in order to make him really _believe_ that Sherlock was gone forever.

Before John could be carried away further by the awake of those memories and pain, which were almost as painful as the night flashbacks of the war, he brought himself back to reality. In an immediate reflex he reached for Sherlock's ankle, which was at arm's reach, only to desperately ground himself to the present, and grabbed it tight. Sherlock stopped talking and stared at him fixedly.

"What's wrong, are you alright?" He sat up and leant towards him.

John looked up at Sherlock as if nothing was happening to him, his eyes yet clearly wet: "Yes, it's nothing. I'm just glad you're here", he smiled weakly.

Sherlock pressed his hand on John's and just stared at him in intense silence.


	4. Chapter 4

After talking for a long while, they both fell asleep on each side of the sofa.

By ten in the morning, Sherlock had woken up, changed into a suit and met Lestrade in his office to let him know about the previous night as well as to point him towards the location of the organization, which they finally found and dismantled. Case solved, he was back at home to a sleeping John, still on the sofa.

Sherlock stood in front of him, bent over a little, put both hands on each side of John's face, and with a soft pat he said: "John, wake up. Go to bed. Your back hurts already." Half asleep, eyes still closed, John mumbled "no more sleep", "case" and "work" and started to get up. Sherlock helped him up and explained there was no more work for today and that he had the day off to rest. John insisted, rubbed his hands on his eyes and when he was finally up Mrs. Hudson came in with a tray.

"Mrs. Hudson!" Sherlock exclaimed, both arms wide open.

"I brought you both some breakfast, Sherlock, dear. Homemade biscuits."

"Will you stay for tea?"

"No, dear, I'm afraid not. I have company. You enjoy them. Good morning, John!" She waved as she left.

"Well, breakfast's sorted out then. Care to join me? I'll make some tea, you go refresh yourself", he said as he headed to the kitchen.

John couldn't believe his ears. "And by _I'll make some tea_ you mean that _I'll_ be making it, right? Lazy and spoilt as you've always been", he said, meaning it as an innocent joke, as usual.

But things weren't just as usual and Sherlock's response showed a disproportioned excess of pride that could only be hiding hurt, although that much John didn't notice.

"I mean that _I'll_ make some tea", he said, with a fearsome look in his eyes.

Sherlock sounded rude and rough as he felt awkward trying to do something nice for someone only to find that he was being teased about it. He wasn't comfortable with the situation but he also knew he couldn't expect John to accept him as anything else than his _colleague_ –as much as Sherlock insisted on calling him a friend only to find John correcting the term with such disdain and snub, if not even _embarrassment_, same way he seemed to find so necessary to refute every other's assumption that they were a couple, as if the mere _idea_ was unconceivable and repulsive– if he didn't start being nicer.

Sherlock was setting everything up at the coffee table when John entered the living room, fully dressed but still drying his hair with a towel after the shower.

"So what's it today then?" John asked as he sat down and grabbed his cup of tea.

Long legs crossed, sitting on the single-couch, Sherlock answered with a sigh: "There is _absolutely nothing_ to do, no work today and I'm already bored, just so you know."

"Right, so it's going to be one of _those_ hard days then."

Sherlock reacted once more with pride and a cold stare. He was really trying hard only to be constantly reminded of the _peculiarities_ of his personality almost as an accusation, or so it felt like.

"Well, _you_ can go and do whatever you like, have a date with one of your girlfriends. You don't _have_ to stay here putting up with difficult me, you know."

John was startled yet amused. "What _is_ it with you today?" Sherlock didn't make a single sound, stubbornly looking through the window in silence. "Anyway, if you don't mind, I have no plans of leaving you today. You were gone for three years, and now I have you back and I don't intend to waste one single minute even if that means putting up with that bloody bad temper of yours."

Sherlock was still reluctant but looked at John out of the corner of his eye, and very arrogantly but visibly glad he asked: "Very well, so be it. What shall we do then, knowing that I'll be bored at anything that's not work related?"

"Aren't you and insufferable bastard", John said with a smile. "To begin with, you could play something. I haven't heard you play in years and I'm really missing it."

Sticking to his façade of reluctance, Sherlock went to get his violin and started tuning it. While he played, John had tea and biscuits, eyes closed, feet towards the fireplace, immersing himself in the doze of the life given back to him.


	5. Chapter 5

"I can't possibly understand what you pretend to achieve dragging me out among all these idiots."

Wrapped up in his coat and scarf, Sherlock looked incredibly over exasperated at the idea of seeing people. John looked up to him with a funny smile on his lips, experiencing again that adrenaline rush that the simple act of walking with Sherlock on the streets of London gave him.

Sherlock was really trying not to show what he felt, but he was taking it over the edge. Instead of acting natural he was exacerbating his ways and becoming extremely annoying, only not to John who was too busy being delighted. And so John took him to the Thames.

"Boring."

John laughed. "I don't care if you find it boring, Sherlock. Today is the first day I get to quietly enjoy your return into my life and you'll have to deal with it."

Sherlock was secretly exultant, though he _was_ bored as well. He spent the entire time deducing meaningless facts about every single person around them. As they walked, Sherlock snapped: "Adulterous. Gay. Three cats. Corrupt. Kleptomaniac. Pilot. Prostitute. Pervert. TV addict. Porn addict.", while John laughed affectionately.

Sherlock looked down at him, secretly pleased to make him laugh yet too proud to show him anything. Tonelessly and looking away, he said: "Coffee, John."

They walked down the river into the bright, cold winter afternoon towards a café. They sat at a table on the street facing the river, and as soon as Sherlock had his first sip he relaxed considerably and look at John, who was reading a brochure of activities to do on the surroundings. Sherlock imagined John dragging him to one of them, _or more_, and while he was horrified at the perspective he was also surprisingly enjoying the quiet day out with John. He sprawled a little on his chair, stretching his long legs under the table, crossing his right ankle over his left one, trapping John's right foot between them.

"This _is _a date, you know."

John looked up from the brochure, not right up to Sherlock but to the other end of the table, startled.

"Come again?"

"This _is_ a date."

"Sherlock, what are you talking about?"

"Well, I woke you up to a lovely homemade breakfast, played Beethoven for you, and then you took me for a walk down the Thames and to a café, and you're trying to choose a morbidly boring activity for us to do together probably involving other really unbearably idiotic people, and it all seems quite obvious to me."

"Homemade breakfast that _Mrs. Hudson baked_, by the way."

"Unimportant".

"And we _live_ together, we _alway_s have breakfast together and you _always_ play for me."

"Irrelevant."

John laughed, still amazed.

"I don't care what you say, John. This is a date. You brought me to a date. Should I expect wine and roses in my bed by nighttime?"

"You're an idiot when you're bored", John smiled.

Even if John was clueless, Sherlock's lips curved up on the right side in an amused, complicit smile.


	6. Chapter 6

Thereafter, the rest of the _date_ –as Sherlock seemed to insist on calling it– was more placid and Sherlock was also visibly more relaxed as both laughed mostly at the remarks Sherlock stated about everything they happened to encounter on their way. As the day went by, he began feeling less awkward but John sure wasn't getting it right. He couldn't blame him. How could he possibly know he was serious? How could John possibly know Sherlock could feel anything for anyone? Sherlock himself wouldn't have thought so until he found himself completely apart from John for three whole years.

Back at home at nightfall, tea was on order. John lit the fire and Sherlock played for about an hour while John read a book. He then stopped playing and laid down on the same sofa John was sitting, leaning his head on John's lap, placing himself intentionally _right _in the middle of the way between John and his book.

"I'm bored."

"What– would you mind? I'm busy here. Do you want me to entertain you? You don't pay me for that, so sod off and find something else to do on your own", John said as he continued to read, regardless of the head on his legs.

"I don't pay you at all. Now read for me."

"You are the most impolite, stubborn tosser ever to exist, you know that?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "_Read_".

"This book, really? And you're serious about this? Well, I'm already half way through it, should we pick another one?"

"This one's fine. I don't care. I just want to hear you read, I don't care for the storyline."

John put the book aside for a moment, still marking the page with his finger, to look down at Sherlock in disbelief, who by the way was still placidly and carelessly leaning on John's lap, as if it was the most perfectly normal place to rest, staring at John defiantly as though offended by his lack of reading.

"What _is_ up with you today?"

Sherlock limited himself to stare back at John rebelliously, no sound coming out of his mouth. They both just stared.

Then Sherlock closed his eyes for three seconds and sighed, sitting up to face John.

"I'm just done fucking around, John."

John stared back, not moving a single muscle, the book still in his right hand, shocked.

"I am _done_ fucking around", Sherlock repeated himself.

A moment of silence followed, as Sherlock gathered the words together.

"Three years it's been. _Three years_. Not to mention that I didn't know back then if it was going to be longer than that. I didn't even know if you would take me back in your life, if you would understand, if you would forgive me."

"Well, I _did_ punch you in the face, Sherlock. Several times."

"Regardless." Sherlock waved a hand as though dismissing the facts. "You took me back. We have the flat back. We have our lives back. I wasn't even certain this was going to be possible, however much I was expecting it. Hope is a disadvantage, John. One must gather the facts and put oneself together according to them, considering the worst and being ready for it. Calculating possibilities, not having _hope_. And yet there I was, idiotically hoping, against all odds, thinking about you constantly. I had Mycroft reporting me on you, you know. I knew you had moved –more than once–, and that while you were holding and not letting go you still _did_ try to move forward. I know you had a rather long relationship with Sarah, and that she gave you your job back so you could pick up the pieces. There didn't seem to be a space for me there anymore. And yet I still managed to have hope, the idiot I am. And I never felt so alone, John. For the first time in my life I felt completely alone and suffered from it. Prevented from talking to you, unable to reach out and let you know that I _was out there;_ unable to ask you to wait for me, to let you know that I _would_ be back."

John was tense with remembered pain. The memories and the suffering he had gone through came onto him with renewed strength. He fought them back, trying not to break down in front of Sherlock. He was here, it was all over now.

"And, John, I then _knew_." Sherlock continued. "And I _know_ it happened to you too. Because you _can't fool me_. No-one can fool me. I wasn't a hundred percent certain, but I am now. And even if there was a chance I was wrong, I couldn't possibly care less. Because I know that even if you didn't correspond me, things would still be the same between us. Because we both went through it, and neither of us wants to break apart from each other again. I love you. And I know you love me back. So I'm done fucking around."

And just like that, John broke down, as Sherlock touched his face with his fingertips and softly kissed him, tears running down John's smiling face as he hugged him and kissed him back.


End file.
